Wednesday, December 28, 2016

PLA Colonels on "Unrestricted
Warfare": Part I

A November 1999 report from U.S. Embassy Beijing

Summary: Two senior PLA Air Force colonels
wrote "Unrestricted Warfare", presented here in summary translation,
to explore how technology innovation is setting off a revolution in military
tactics, strategy and organization. "Unrestricted Warfare" discusses
new types of warfare which may be conducted by civilians as well as by
soldiers including computer hacker attacks, trade wars and finance wars.
"Unrestricted Warfare" provides insight into the thinking of
some Chinese military theorists about the impact of science and technological
change on China and other countries. Many Chinese books and magazines on
military subjects have appeared this year. Overviews of three other recent
books by a National Defense University Professor on innovations on the
lessons of the Gulf and Kosovo wars along with his reflections on post-Kosovo
U.S. - China relations are provided in the appendix to this first of four
summaries of "Unrestricted Warfare". End summary.

High Tech War Removes Military/Civilian Distinctions

Two PLA Air Force senior colonels, Qiao Liang
[STC: 0829 5328] of the PLA Air Force Political Department and Wang Xiangsui
[STC: 3769 3276 4482] of the Guangzhou Military District PLA Air Force
Political Department, published "Unrestricted Warfare" - Assumptions
on War and Tactics in the Age of Globalization" in February 1999.
Rather than examining new military technologies, the two senior colonels
take a step back and discuss how the coming of various new technologies
in general is in turn bringing changes in military tactics, strategies
and organization. "Unrestricted Warfare" is written in a clear
and light-hearted style.

The big picture implications of technological
change for the Chinese military in "Unrestricted Warfare" come
into perspective when we consider how in both the civilian and military
spheres, scientific and technological change depend on far more than science
and technology as narrowly defined. The most important applications of
new technologies as well as the organizational changes and social and business
adaptations needed to make the best use of these technologies are not always
apparent at first. Military high technology depends increasingly on the
flow of innovations from the civilian economy. In both the civilian and
military sectors, it takes time to learn how to use a new technology effectively.
Technological change in China as in other societies is often hindered by
a variety of economic, social and political obstacles.

Tech Change Bars: Unemployment, Lack of Market Pressure

The slow adaptation of Chinese business to
computers over the past two decades is one example. Examinations of the
Y2K situation in China show that in many sectors where computers have come
into wide use, organizations continue to do business much as they did before.
They have not made the radical cuts in their work force that computerization
would seem to make possible. Among the reasons may be that many companies,
especially state-run enterprises, do not feel the pressure to make painful
efficiency improving changes that stockholders demand of market-oriented
companies in Western countries. Other obstacles to technical innovation in
China include the need to keep staffing high despite technical innovations,
since large employment cuts might threaten social stability. Constant and
often unnecessary interference by government in business decisions, especially
in northern China, also slow the spread of technological innovations and
other best practices. Indeed, the question "why don�t best practices
spread" more rapidly is one of the most important questions facing
foreign technical assistance programs in China. The answer seems to be
the many Chinese walls between and within organizations and the weakness
of market incentives compared with the bureaucratic power of the command
economy in many areas.

Reform Needed to Stem Brain Drain, Close Twenty
Year Lag

Professor Zhang Zhaozhong in his September
1999 book "Who is the Next Target?" (overview in appendix) points
to the visa line at the U.S. Embassy as clear evidence of a brain
drainand argues that China must reform its
system, use human talent more effectively and pay better in order to retain
talent. If it does not, Zhang says, China will have great difficulty overcoming
its twenty-year lag behind the United States in overall scientific and
technological development.

War Books and Articles Widespread This Year

During this year of the Kosovo War, the mistaken
bombing of the PRC Embassy in Belgrade and cross-strait tensions, there
has been a flood of books and articles about war, military strategy and
comparisons of the strengths of mainland and Taiwan forces. Military officers
such as the PLA senior colonels who wrote "Unrestricted Warfare"
and the very prolific National Defense University Professor Zhang Zhaozhong
express more balanced views on U.S. - China relations than some popular
Chinese writers.

A Calmer PRC Military View on U.S. - China Relations

The September 1999 "Who is the Next Target"
by Zhang Zhaozhong reflects this cooler view in his consideration of the
fall of the USSR on p. 127. "The case of Russia makes us realize that
mutually beneficial relations and coexistence with the United States, Japan,
France and other big countries are important for all. It is not a matter
of one side begging the other since it must be based on national interests
and on the fundamental importance of developing our country. It is this
that makes relations between countries move forward. "That there are contradictions and disputes
between China and the United States and other countries is normal. Too
close a relationship or an alliance is abnormal since every country must
always consider its own distinct national interests. International relations
are different from personal friendships. Although the Kosovo War occurred
and hegemonism and power politics are all too widespread in the world,
peace and development are still the main line of development for the twenty-first
century.... Yet there are still people in the West who want to destroy
us or divide us, so we must think about our national defense and not just
about peace, development and making money," wrote Professor Zhang
Zhaozhong.

Overview of Three Zhang Zhaozhong Military S and
T Books

Three 1999 books by National Defense University
Professor Zhang Zhaozhong are described in the appendix below. The three
books are:-- Who Will Win the Next War? (March
1999)-- How Far is War From Us? (July 1999)-- Who is the Next Target? (September
1999) Zhang Zhaozhong, director of the Military Science
and Technology Education and Research Office at National Defense University
is frequently interviewed in the Chinese media.

The Intersection of EST and Security Issues

Several other Embassy Beijing reports and Chinese
press excerpts on the intersection of EST and security issues are available
on the U.S. Embassy web page at http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/index.htmlThese include several reports on information
security and a 1998 book by a PLA Navy Captain who sees environmental deterioration
and natural resource depletion as China's most important security concerns.

Publication Information

"Unrestricted Warfare"-Thoughts
on War and Strategy in a Global Era [Chaoxianzhan - dui quanqiuhua shidai
zhanzheng yu zhanfa de xiangding] by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui was published
February 1999 by People�s Liberation Army Arts Publishers (Address: Jiefangjun
Wenyi Chubanshe, Baishiqiao #42, Beijing 100081)This is the first of a four part summary translation
of "Unrestricted Warfare". FBIS began issuing a chapter by chapter
translation of "Unrestricted Warfare" after we had nearly completed
our summary of the book.[Page numbers in text below refer to the first
edition of "Unrestricted Warfare". Many paragraph headings have
been added for the convenience of the reader.]

BEGIN SUMMARY TRANSLATION OF "UNRESTRICTED
WARFARE" PART ONE

Introduction

Advances in science and technology are making
dreams come true. Wonderful toys emerge regularly from Bell Labs and from
Sony. Bill Gates makes a new version of Windows every year. With the cloning
of the sheep "Dolly", mankind seems to be pushing even the Creator
aside. The intimidating SU-27 Russian fighter aircraft has never seen battle
and the SU-35 fighter is now ready but many have doubts whether it will
be a successful airplane. (p. 2, 8) Technology is like a magic slipper.
Once the profit motive is involved, all the rest is just clicking your
heels and say where you want to go!Many new technologies arise in many different
fields so to say that we live in the nuclear age or the information age
is to slight important technologies in other fields. Many new fields such
as biotechnology, materials technology and information science interpenetrate
each other. New technologies become old technologies very quickly. Perhaps
one day a technology that humankind cannot control will emerge and destroy
us all. Yet humanity always charges forward searching for newer and better
technologies. Solutions to technical problems often bring with them new
problems that must be solved. The most important of these new emerging
technologies is information technology. Technologies can really no longer
be using singly. Information technology helps blend together an array of
new technologies. [pp. 3-5]

One Weapon No Longer Dominates: Combinations Rule

Armies need ever-newer technologies and well-trained
soldiers who can handle them. In the Gulf War 500 new technologies developed
during the 1980s were used. The Gulf War became a showcase of modern weaponry.
Yet the most important lesson was not the technologies themselves but the
systematization trend to be seen in the development and use of these weapons.
Take the "Patriot" missile that intercepted the Scuds. Superficially
like shooting birds with a rifle, the process of missile interception is
much more complex. It required coordination across half the globe. A satellite
acquires the target, sends a warning to a ground station in Australia,
which sends a signal by way of the Mount Cheyenne Command Center to the
Command Center in Riyadh which orders the Patriot crew to prepare to fire
the Patriot missile. This warning stage takes 90 seconds. Many weapons
systems now overcome barriers to time and space: something unimaginable
before the rise of information technology. Before World War II a single
weapon could bring about a revolution in military affairs. No longer. Now
no one weapon dominates.

What is War? Are Hacker Attacks and CNN Weapons?

The blending of technologies for war in the
global era have ended the dominance of weapons in war. From this new baseline
the relations of weapons to war have changed and made the concept of war
itself vague. Is a hacker attack an act of war? Is using financial tools
to destroy a country�s economy and act of war? Did the CNN report of the
body of an American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu,
Somalia sap the will of Americans to send their soldiers out to be the
policemen of the world and so change the world strategic balance? When
we decide just what is an act of war do we look at methods or effects?
According to the conventional definition of war, there is no way to come
to a satisfactory answer to these questions. When we consider that any one of these non-war
activities could be elements of the new kind war of the future we have
to give this new kind of war that transcends boundaries and limits: "Unrestricted
Warfare".

"Unrestricted Warfare": Military/Civilian
Distinctions Break Down

"Unrestricted Warfare" means that
any methods can be prepared for use, information is everywhere, the battlefield
is everywhere, and that any technology might be combined with any other
technology, and that the boundaries between war and non-war and between
military and non-military affairs has systematically broken down. [pp.
6-7]

Book One On New War

Chapter 1 The Revolution in Weaponry Came First

The revolution in weaponry created the conditions
for a revolution in military affairs. Every new weapon creates the possibility
of new tactics and strategy. This was true for the crossbow, for gunpowder
just as it is for the high technology weapons of today. Once a single new
weapon could bring about a revolution in military affairs. Now, since more
and more weapons have been invented, the importance of any one weapon has
decreased. Excluding the use of nuclear weapons, of course, which as time
goes by seems more and more unlikely. It is not simply a matter of high
tech warfare" or "information warfare". What is high tech?
Logically high tech means something in relation to something else that
is low tech. So it is a relative term. The M-60 tank and the B-52 bomber,
as products of the technology of the 1960s and 1970s (sic) are low tech
compared with the Abrams tank, the F-117 and the Patriot missile. Yet these
high tech weapons look out of date compared with the B-2, the F-22, and
the Comanche helicopter. Technology constantly changes, so what is high
tech? [pp. 12- 13]Adding information components to all weapons
does not an information war make. These might be called informatized weapons.
The F-22 for all its informatized functions is still a fighter plane. Informatized
warfare in its broad sense and information war in the narrow sense are
two completely different things. The former uses information functionality
to strengthen existing weapons; the latter uses information as a tool or
suppresses information in order to fight a war. An excessive stress on
information technologies just puts money into Bill Gates� pocket and neglects
other important rising technologies such as materials technology and biotechnology.
[p. 14]

Use Your Weapons to Fight Or Make Weapons to Suit

"Uses the weapons you have to fight a
war" and "Depending upon the war that you will fight create the
weapons that you will need" are two very different conceptions that
illustrate the difference between the wars of the past and the wars of
the future. Now "use the weapons you have to fight a war" is
still very important. Finding the optimal combination of weapons available
and using them to their maximum effectiveness is essential. It is not just
backward countries that take do this actively. The U.S. as well needs to
do this if it is to fight a modern, expensive war. The only difference
between the backward country in the United States in the choice that it
is forced to make is that the United States has more to choose from.

Synergies Between Different Generation Weapons Powerful

Finding the right combination of weapons can
not only make up for the weaknesses of different generations of weapons,
it can be a "force multiplier" of weapons effectiveness. One
example is the use of the B-52 bomber as it neared the end of its service
life as a launching platform for cruise missiles and other precision guided
weapons. An A-10 aircraft with infrared missiles attached to its exterior
gains a night attack capability it never had before. Moreover, combining
the A-10 with the Apache helicopter makes a tremendously effective fighting
force. [15 � 16]

Better and Better Weapons Selections on World Markets

The weapons markets of today feature and ever
expanding array of weapons and many sources for weapons. These channels
make a wide range of choices possible. Different generations of weapons
can be combined to breakthrough old prejudices about weapon generation,
use, and combinations of weapons. The obsolete weapon can become a wonder
weapon. A superstitious belief that the very latest weapon is needed to
fight modern war might lead paradoxically to a situation in which the wonder
weapon turns out to be a dud. We are in a transitional period in a weapons
revolution from which explosive power as the measure of a weapon to a new
period in which the information is measure of a weapon. We have no way
of predicting how long this period will last. Until the transition to the
next stage is complete, any country, including the United States deciding
what weapons to use to fight which war will be the determine the relationship
between weapons and the fighting of wars. Although this principle is the
most fundamental one, it is perhaps not an eternal principle. [17]

From Random Discovery to Directed Research

The progress of scientific and technological
progress is less and less driven passively by discoveries that come along
and more and more by directed research. The "depending upon the war
that you will fight, create the weapons that you will need" that the
Americans propose has brought about the biggest change in the relationship
between weapons and tactics since war began. In first deciding how a war
will be fought and then developing weapons, the Americans "ate their
first crab" in the "integrated air-land battlefield". The
"digitized battlefield" and the "digitized combat units"
are the first efforts in this direction. This method is threatening the
rule that changes in weaponry always precede revolutions in military affairs.
A new interactive relationship between weapons and tactics is emerging.
The meaning of weapons is also changing. No longer are isolated weapons
but rather weapons systems are being developed. The F-111 was not able
to be used effectively in combination with other weapons and became an
expensive lesson. The idea that one or two weapons alone will be the killer
weapons that will destroy enemies has become obsolete.

High Tech Units Vulnerable to Low Tech Adversaries

"Depending upon the war that you will
fight, create the weapons that you will need" is a two-edged sword.
It offers active choices and a method to confront a vast array of possibilities.
It is a great breakthrough in military history yet it also conceals with
itself a great hazard of modern warfare. Who are you fighting? The U.S.
military in Somalia found that it could not handle crowds on the street
as it tried to fight an enemy that used unconventional tactics. On the
battlefield of the future, a digitized units might guerilla units that
use unconventional tactics. The further apart the generations of military
technology used by opposing sides, the harder it is for them to fight to
a resolution. High tech troops have difficulty fighting unconventional
wars and opponents fighting low-tech wars. [pp. 17 � 18] [Note on p. 31 on this section: (12) In the
November 1998 issue of "National Defense University Journal"
Chen Bojiang discusses his interview with Chairman Philip Aodien [?] of
the Defense Subcommittee of the U.S. Congress. During the interview, Aodien
said several times that the greatest threat to the United States is "asymmetric
war".]

New Concept Weapons and Weapons Concepts

Nearly all the weapons that have been invented
up to the present day can be called old concept weapons. The old concept
means that a weapons can be characterized adequately by its mobility and
its destructiveness. Even high tech weapons like precision guided bombs
are just weapons to which some intelligent functionality has been added.
These kinds of weapons are designed to be used by professional soldiers
on a well-defined battlefield. Yet these weapons and weapons platforms
are a dead end as far as the wars of the future are concerned. These efforts
to gild conventional weapons with high tech are doomed by the massive spending
in high tech arms races.

USSR Lesson: High Tech Arms Race Brought Bankruptcy

In order to maintain weapons superiority ever-higher
sums must be spent. Which no nation can afford in the end. The final result
is that the weapons built to defend the country end up driving the country
into bankruptcy. The Soviet military theorist Aoerjiakefu was the first
to see the coming revolution in military affairs. Yet his far-sightedness
paradoxically was one of the factor that drove the USSR into bankruptcy
by accelerating the arms race with the United States and so leading to
unsustainable Soviet military spending. A great empire collapse without
a shot being fired just as Gibbons wrote: an empire ends with a whimper,
not with a roar.

But the U.S. Is Making the Same Mistake

The United States is walking down the same
path as the USSR. Each new generation of weapons costs more to develop
and produce. The F-15s and F-16s of the 1960s and 70s cost USD 1 billion,
the B2 USD 10 billion and the F-22 USD 13 billion. The B-2 bomber at USD
1.3 billion each cost three times their weight in gold. Weapons such as
the Comanche helicopter is making the arms of the U.S. [pp. 19 � 20]

An Unfortunate U.S. Lead in Both Technology And
Its Applications

New concept weapons are cropping up everywhere.
What is a little unfair is that the Americans lead in this area, too. The
U.S. used silver iodide powder and defoliants to help detect soldiers walking
on the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War. The combination of technical
strength and financial resources makes the U.S. unparalleled in this area.
Although Americans are good at making new concept weapons, they are especially
good at coming up with new weapons concepts � using the weapons in original
ways. That requires a systematic and philosophical thinking not the strength
of the Americans who are practical people good at coming up with new technologies.

Methods of Attack: Viruses, Finance Are Also Weapons

New weapons concepts are completely different
from new concept weapons. New weapons concepts is a broad conception of
weapons that transcends the military field � whatever method can be used
to fight a war is a weapon. In this view, whatever provides benefits to
mankind can also be turned around to be a weapon to harm mankind. That
is to say that there is nothing in the world that cannot become a weapon.
This smashes our conception of just what a weapon is. Just as technology
is multiplying the number of different kinds of weapons, new thinking breaks
down the distinction between weapon and non-weapon. To our way of thinking,
a planned stock market crash, a computer virus attack, making the currency
exchange rate of an enemy country erratic, and spreading rumors on the
Internet about the leaders of an enemy country can all be thought of as
new concept weapons. This new way of thinking puts weapons into the daily
lives of civilians. New concept weapons can make of war something that
even military professionals will find hard to imagine. Both soldiers and
civilians will be disturbed to see items in their everyday lives become
weapons that can attack and kill. [pp. 21 � 22]

The Merciful Trend in Weapons

Until the atomic bomb came on the stage, wars
were fought in an environment in which the power to kill and injure the
enemy was scarce. The history of weaponry is the story of a steady increase
in killing and destruction capability. After the mushroom cloud rose over
the plains of New Mexico, military people got the power to totally destroy
their enemies hundreds and thousands of times over. They had an excess
of killing power for the first time in history.

Historical Trend Towards Killing Power Ended With
Bomb: Now Pendulum Swings Towards Less Killing Power

There is a principle in philosophy that whenever
something reaches its extreme, it must then reverse its direction. [Note:
in Chinese the famous adage "wuji bifan". End note] Nuclear weapons
were a dead end. What good is it to destroy enemies a thousand times over
and to destroy the Earth? Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and the Balance
of Terror are the results of that situation. A new trend appeared in weaponry,
towards greater precision and control. After the Second World War, revulsion
at the destructiveness of nuclear weapons resulted in a taboo against their
use. Moreover, technology made it increasingly possible to attack the heart
of an enemy with less damage. More options made it possible for the goal
to become establishing control over rather than killing and maiming the
enemy. War concepts and weapons concepts changed. The idea of forcing an
unconditional surrender through unlimited killing and wars with battles
like Verdun became obsolete. [pp. 23 � 24]

Wounding Soldiers Can Be More Effective Than Killing

Precision and non-lethal weapons appeared.
The weapons development goal was not strength but "greater mercy".
A precision weapon hits on target and causes less collateral damage in
a surgical strike. An example is the way the Russians used a cellular telephone
signal and a guided missile to close forever the mouth of the Chechen leader
Tudayafu [transliteration]. Non-lethal weapons destroy the combat capability
of soldiers and weapons but does not kill people. In the Gulf War, the
number of Iraqi civilians numbered just a few thousand � far fewer than
were killed in the bombing of Dresden during the Second World War. A tank
might be defeated by explosives or by lasers than blinds the soldiers in
the tank. On a battlefield, an enemy is burdened more by the wounded who
need assistance than by the dead, who need none. Wounding rather than killing
soldiers creates terror in other soldiers and potent anti-war propaganda
for the people back home. Yet we should not fall into the trap of thinking
that "merciful weapons" will eventually lead to bloodless wars
played on computers. [Note: Footnotes on this chapter on pp. 28
� 33 have abundant references to American military writings on these subjects.
End note]

The Face of The God of War Is Hard To Discern

Ever since hunters turned their hunting weapons
into weapons of war, war has been composed of three elements: soldiers,
weapons and battlefields. This is all changing now. According to Clausewitz,
"War is the extension of politics." Yet wars have been fought
for many reasons. The Opium War Britain fought against China must have
been the biggest state drug promotion campaign of all history. Hitler fought
for living room for the German people. The Japanese fought for their East
Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. With the end of the Cold War many have had
to face the difficult question, "Who is the enemy?" The old Cold
War slogans have lost their force. Now alliances shift frequently. The
U.S. helped Iran fight Iraq, but shortly thereafter Iran became the enemy
of the U.S. The old saying is still true: "Countries have no eternal
friends, only eternal interests." We can see this in the war over
the Iraqi conquest of Kuwait. The U.S. and other allied countries (and
the soldiers fighting) called it a war to liberate Kuwait, but actually
it was fought over Middle East oil. In war, often the ostensible objective
and the actual objective are two different things. [pp. 34 � 38]

Where is War Fought?

Technology has changed where the battlefields
are. The First World War was fought in trenches along a very long line.
The old battlefields of barbed wire and machine guns were slaughterhouses.
Rapid advances in technology has moved war from two to three dimensions.
New weapons give rise to new strategies. The British General John Fredrich
Fuller showed this for tanks in his classic "Tanks in the Great War"
as did the Italian Guilio Douhet did for airpower in his book "The
Conquest of the Air" and the Russian Tuheqiefusuji [transliteration]
for coordinated command on the battlefield. Ludendorff who fought the Russian
in Poland and the Western powers at Verdun was a proponent of total war
both on and off the battlefield. In World War II Hitler didn�t realize
that he was making a strategic revolution when in using long range missiles
like the V-1 and the V-2 he erased the boundary between the battlefront
and the rear. Advances in technology due to satellites, submarines, electromagnetic
radiation and guided missiles have further extended the battlefield to
nearly every corner of our world.

The Battlefield is Everywhere

The combination of weapons systems can create
a new kind of technical space � a new battlefield that never existed before.
Electronic and information technologies have created a net space, which
can become a battlefield. The battlefield extends simultaneously at the
micro, medium-range and macro level as well as in various hybrid technical
spaces in ways in never did before. The proliferation of weapons and technologies
has blurred the distinction between the soldiers and civilians and between
the battlefield and the non-battlefield. The battlefield is everywhere.
From a computer room or on from the trading floor of a stock exchange a
lethal attack on a foreign country can be launched. In such a world is
there anywhere that is not a battlefield? Where is the battlefield? It
is everywhere. [pp. 38 � 42]

Who Will Fight the Wars of the Future? Bookworms?

Beginning with the "one million man reduction"
in the size of the Chinese military in 1985, the militaries of the world
have been reducing their manpower. Some said this was because of the end
of the Cold War. Yet the more important reason was the technical revolution
that made large armies inefficient and made a smaller force with higher
technical training more effective than a larger force. The new technology
changed military thinking and the theory of war. In the new world in which
even nuclear war may become an obsolete concept, the near-sighted bookworm
may be a better candidate for the soldier of the future than a big, powerfully
built person. One example may be a September 1995 U.S. Defense Department
test in which a USAF officer with a computer and modem broke into a U.S.
Navy command and control center.

Distant Attacks By Soldiers Who Don't Get Their
Hands Dirty

Rapidly changing technologies is creating a
big generation gap in militaries. The generation gap is manifesting itself
both physically and mentally. Even the West Point "beast barracks"
may not be able to drum out of these young people the weak, scholarly tendency
rooted in them by contemporary society. Attacks beyond visual range make
it possible to make a bloody attack on the enemy all without getting one�s
clothes dirty. The digital solder of tomorrow is weakening the position
of the old blood and iron warrior of tradition more than ever before. [pp.
42 � 43]

Civilian Elite's Role in War Does Not Make For Mao's
People's War

Information technologies have transformed the
division of labor in industrial society. War is no longer the preserve
of professional soldiers. The increasing involvement of civilians in war
is far from the "People�s War" of Mao Zedong�s theory since it
is not the masses of people but a technically-trained elite of civilians
that is getting involved in military affairs. Who will play the main role
in the next war? Professional military people or civilian technicians?
The first and strongest challenge to appear thus far is from the computer
hackers. Hackers, mostly people without military training who rely only
on their own technical skills, easily penetrate military and national security
computer systems. In 1994 a 16-year old hacker in England penetrated some
U.S. military and government systems. An attack by a 16 year old is not
an act of war. But how then do we determine what an act of war is? What
is a civilian action and what is a non-professional military act of war?
How many of the 230,000 of attacks on U.S. DoD computer systems in 1994
were organized? There is no way to know. [p. 44]

Hackers, Net Users Have Own Rules, Great Power

Computer networks have greater and greater
influences on world affairs. Hackers and many non-hackers wandering on
the computer networks of the world act according to their own ethics �
they are not bound by the playing rules of society at large. They can use
the web to challenge evil. One example is the eyewitness to attacks on
ethnic Chinese in Indonesia by the Chinese military who broke the Suharto
government�s information embargo by putting a report on the web that woke
up the world to these atrocities. The Indonesian military stood accused
before the world. A hacker called MilwOrm as a protest against Indian atomic
bomb tests broke into the India Atomic Research Center web site, changed
the web page and downloaded 5 megabytes of data. A hacker might in some
cases have the same impact as an atomic bomb. [p. 45]

Non-State Organization Threat: Terrorists, U.S.
Militias

Some non-state organizations are bigger threats
to the world than hackers are. These include the Islamic Jihad, the civilian
militias of the United States, the Omu Church of Japan, and Ben Laden who
blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A state using limited
means has great difficulty defeating a non-state organization willing to
use unlimited means. These non-state organizations and non-professional
soldiers have carried out a number of military activities but also a number
of non-military wars. These people are not always hackers � they might
be computer systems analysts, software engineers, stock manipulators, financiers
who move vast amounts of capital internationally, or mass media kings and
even newspaper columnists or TV hosts. These people have their own beliefs
that they hold no less strongly than Ben Laden does. From this perspective,
how can one deny that George Soros is a financial terrorist?[Note: Mainstream Chinese economists do not
see George Soros as a "financial terrorist". A Chinese economist
told ESTOFF Chinese economists argued against Malaysian colleagues holding
this view in a 1998 Hong Kong conference on the Asian Economic Crisis.
Chinese bookstores today have several admiring biographies of George Soros.
Some Chinese journalists and policymakers probably share the view of the
authors, however. End note]

Today's Soldiers Are Becoming Fading Dinosaurs

Modern technology has transformed weapons and
the battlefield and made fuzzy the concept of the combatant. Global terrorists,
non-professional combatants, and non-state organizations are a growing
threat to sovereign states. Faced with these threats, the professional
solider of today resembles the great, powerful but poorly adapted dinosaur.[pp. 46 � 47]

END PART ONE OF "UNRESTRICTED WARFARE"
SUMMARY TRANSLATIONAppendix One: Recent Books by Professor Zhang
Zhaozhong of National Defense UniversityWho Will Win the Next War? [Shei
neng ying xia yi chang zhanzheng] [published by China Youth Press [Zhongguo
Qingnian Chubanshe], March 1999How Far is War From Us?
[Zhangzheng Li Women you duoyuan] published by PLA Publishing House, July
1999 (580 pages)Who is the Next Target?,
[Xia yige mubiao shi shei?] published by China Youth Press (404 pages)An Overview of "Who Will Win
the Next War"Who Will Win the Next War by Zhang Zhaozhong
published in March, 1999 by Youth Publishing House. This book, published
in March 1999 is by a prominent PRC defense analyst. Zhang Zhaozhong served
for 30 years in the PRC Navy and is now is a professor and director of
the S&T Research Office at National Defense University. Zhang examines
the latest weapons technologies as they were used in December 1998 against
Iraq and in the Gulf War. The greatest threat comes now from the air. Zhang
discusses "fire and forget" missiles, laser weapons, stealth
weaponry, and the recent revival from the ashes of the old Star Wars plan.
Zhang discusses the lessons of the six nation naval semi-annual exercises
held around Hawaii in July-August 1998.Will aircraft carriers be obsolete in the 21st
Century? Mushroom clouds over South Asia: India and Pakistan. Chinese scientists
have shown that superstitions like Nostradamus� prediction that the world
will end on August 19, 1999 are wrong. Peace and stability look to be the
main trends in the early 21st century, so a major war is unlikely and many
of the big countries continue to reduce their armaments and military budgets,
but some military confrontations are quite possible. How will China face
the Pacific Century? The Pacific Ocean isn�t very pacific: the U.S. depends
on island bases as unsinkable aircraft carriers. How should China prepare
to win the next war? Continued reform is essential to building China�s
strength. The 1300 page April 1992 U.S. DoD final report on the Gulf War
gives excellent insights into U.S. military thinking and strategy. The
increasing stress on high technology weaponry is clear. The U.S. is building
the informatized military of the 21st Century and using reorganization
to boost effectiveness.China should shift its focus from weapons quantity
to weapons quality. Government decision makers and technical advisory departments
should be kept distinct in order to avoid conflicts of interest. Military
authority should not be divided by service but rather all military elements
in a certain region should be under a unified command. This will be especially
important in the task of protecting China�s 200 nautical mile exclusive
economic zone and 350 km continental shelf zone that became effective when
the UN Law of the Sea officially took effect in 1994. Strengthening military
procurement and merging military and civilian product standards so that
the military can procure from the civilian market is an important trend
of the 1990s.An Overview
of "How Far is War From Us?" from the PLA Publishing House"How Far is War From Us?" is mostly
technical and drawing largely from open U.S. sources (including internet
sites) such as the U.S. Department of Defense "Defense Science and
Technology Strategy for 2000 � 2005" published in 1996. The book also
addresses broader themes such as the information revolution, the technological
wave theories of Alvin Toffler ("The Third Wave") and other information
age theorists. [Note: Alvin Toffler's books and theories are
very well known in China. Toffler may well be more frequently cited in
China than in the U.S. End note] Long sections of the "How Far is War From
Us?" are focus on the basics of C4ISR (command, control, communications,
computers, information, monitoring and reconnaissance), information warfare,
the informatization of equipment such as tanks, ships and aircraft. The
book also addresses issues such as new strategy, new tactics and new ways
of organizing military forces. The non-Chinese familiar with the English language
literature will find the last section the most interesting one. Although
this chapter like others, relies heavily on foreign literature, the lessons
that the Zhang wants China to draw are clear. One specifically Chinese
issue (p. 530 ff) is the advantage of monetarizing military benefits so
that soldiers can arrange for housing and their children�s education on
the market rather than being part of a military subculture separate from
society. Overview of "Who is the Next
Target?"Themes addressed in chapters of "Who is
the Next Target" include:Lessons of the Kosovo War: Serbia used decoys
effectively so its tank losses were far less than NATO thought. Serbia
built many fake as well as real tank shelters along its highways: China
should consider similar tactics. Serbia gave in not because of the NATO
attack but because of the position taken by Russia on Kosovo. The greatest
difference between the Gulf War and Kosovo were the causes of the war.
The Gulf War was a response to the invasion of Kuwait. The Kosovo war was
a totally unjustified NATO intervention in the purely internal affairs
of Yugoslavia. A review of 50 years of NATO. Is it creating
a new Cold War? The Warsaw Pact dissolved but NATO didn�t. France and Germany
have their own ideas and may differ with the USA on important issues in
the future. The new "NATO Strategic Concept for the Twenty-First Century"(p.
47) has troubling aspects. NATO is changing from a military to a military-political
organization and from focusing on protecting the territorial integrity
of member states to preventing "new threats" to European security
such as terrorism. As NATO expands eastwards who will be its next target?As Samuel Huntington remarked, the US is becoming
more and more isolated (p. 51, 69) and is accumulating more and more enemies.
Are the Americans really as wealthy and powerful as Chinese people think?
Then why would they give that tremendous insult to China by attacking its
embassy? (p. 57) That was just another case of acting after their embassies
were blow up in Africa � they went and hit civilian targets in Sudan and
Afghanistan just to show how strong and how dominant they are. This U.S.
hegemonism is all about constraining other nations but what force is there
to put constraints on the United States? Will Russia be able to constrain
the U.S. over the next twenty years? That is not the right question to
ask. Ask instead "Will Russia be able to avoid a steep decline so
that it becomes just another developing country � and a developing country
that ranks behind China at that." Will sleeping giant Russia awake?. The Russia
�Belarus alliance left Yugoslavia out in the cold (p. 86). The deterioration
of the Russian forces raises the question: "Can the Russian military
fight?" The Russian deployment in Kosovo made headlines but that the
fact that the Russian troops had to depend on the UK troops for food didn�t.
What is the lesson of Russia? (p. 127) The
case of Russia makes us realize that mutually beneficial relations and
coexistence with the United States, Japan, France and other big countries
are important for all. It is not a matter of one side begging the other
since it must be based on national interests and on the fundamental importance
of developing our country. It is this that makes relations between countries
move forward. That there are contradictions and disputes
between China and the United States and other countries is normal. Too
close a relationship or an alliance is abnormal since every country must
always consider its own distinct national interests. International relations
are different from personal friendships. Although there was a Kosovo War
and hegemonism and power politics are all too widespread in the world,
peace and development are still the main line of development for the twenty-first
century.... Yet there are still people in the West who want to destroy
us or divide us so we must think about our national defense and not just
about peace, development and making money.Disagreements on human rights between the U.S.
and China arise from differences in history, culture, and level of development,
outlook and social system.What wins wars? In the end not the weapons
but the people, whoever can combine people and high tech most effectively
wins. Example: (p. 238) Only 20 percent of the U.S. guided missiles reached
their targets. How did the Yugoslavs do it? Scouts on mountaintops saw
missile launches from ships, relayed the information to the Yugoslav command.
Then everyone shot at the missiles with rifles, machine guns, revolvers
� everything. Many were shot down. Chairman Mao (p. 244) used strategy
to win against armies with superior weaponry. The same principle applies
today.The Chinese people are waking up. The backward
get kicked around. Only if China develops and become a strong country will
it be able to take its place in the world, said Deng Xiaoping. The Chinese
people are becoming much more concerned about national defense issues (p.
267). Just look at the people in line for visas at the U.S. Embassy in
Beijing � all that student talent built by China is going off to the USA.
Part of the problem is the system, part is the way human talents are used,
part is low pay � China needs to solve this problem. China spends too little
on science and technology, a key basis of military strength. China is at
least twenty years behind the United States in its overall scientific and
technological development.

Revealed: How the U.S. Navy Would Destroy a Chinese Aircraft Carrier

Ah, yes, the “carrier-killer.” China is forever touting
the array of guided missiles its weaponeers have devised to pummel U.S.
Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs). Most prominent among
them are its DF-21D and DF-26 antiship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), which
the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has made a mainstay of China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) defenses.
Beijing has made believers of important audiences, including the
scribes who toil away at the Pentagon producing estimates of Chinese
martial might. Indeed, the most recent annual report on Chinese military
power states
matter-of-factly that the PLA can now use DF-21Ds to “attack ships,
including aircraft carriers,” more than nine hundred statute miles from
China’s shorelines.
Scary. But the U.S. Navy has carrier-killers of its own. Or, more accurately, it has shipkillers
of its own: what can disable or sink a flattop can make short work of
lesser warships. And antiship weaponry is multiplying in numbers, range,
and lethality as the navy reawakens from its post-Cold War holiday from history. Whose carrier-killer trumps whose will hinge in large part on where a sea fight takes place.
That carrier-killer imagery
resonates with Western audiences comes as little surprise. It implies
that Chinese rocketeers can send the pride of the U.S. Navy to the
bottom from a distance, and sink U.S. efforts to succor Asian allies in
the process. Worse, it implies that PLA commanders could pull off such a
world-historical feat without deigning to send ships to sea or
warplanes into the central blue. Close the firing key on the ASBM launcher, and presto!, it happens.Well, maybe.
Why obsess over technical minutiae like firing range? For one thing,
the nine-hundred-mile range cited for the DF-21D far exceeds the reach
of carrier-based aircraft. A carrier task force, consequently, could
take a heckuva beating just arriving on Asian battlegrounds. And the
range mismatch could get worse. Unveiled at the PLA’s military parade
through Beijing last fall, the DF-26 will reportedly sport a maximum firing range of 1,800-2,500 miles.
If the technology pans out, PLA ballistic missiles could menace U.S.
and allied warships plying the seas anywhere within Asia’s second island
chain. The upper figure for DF-26 range, moreover, would extend ASBMs’
reach substantially beyond the island chain.
From an Atlantic perspective, striking a ship east of Guam from
coastal China is like smiting a ship cruising east of Greenland from a
missile battery in downtown Washington, DC. Reaching Guam would become a
hazardous prospect for task forces steaming westward from Hawaii or the
American west coast, while shipping based at Guam, Japan, or other
Western Pacific outposts would live under the constant shadow of missile
attack.
Now, it’s worth noting that the PLA has never tested the DF-21D over water, five-plus years after initially deploying it. Still less has the DF-26 undergone testing under battle conditions. That’s cause to pause and reflect. As the immortal Murphy might counsel, technology not perfected in peacetime tends to disappoint its user in wartime.
Still, an ASBM will be a useful piece of kit if Chinese engineers
have made it work. The U.S. military boasts no counterpart to China’s
family of ASBMs. Nor is it likely to. The United States is bound by treaty
not to develop mid-range ballistic missiles comparable to the DF-21D or
DF-26. Even if Washington canceled its treaty commitments today, it
would take years if not decades for weapons engineers to design, test,
and field a shipkilling ballistic missile from a cold start.
Still, the U.S. Navy isn’t without options in naval war. Far from it.
How would American mariners would dispatch an enemy flattop in combat?
The answer is the default answer we give in my department in Newport: it
depends.
It would depend, that is, on where the encounter took place. A fleet
duel involving carriers would take a far different trajectory on the
open sea—remote from fire support from Fortress China, the PLA’s
unsinkable aircraft carrier—than if it unfolded within range of ASBMs,
cruise missiles, or aircraft emplaced along seacoasts or offshore
islands.
The former would be a fleet-on-fleet affair: whatever firepower each
force totes to the scene of action decides the outcome, seamanship,
tactical acumen, and élan being equal. The latter would let PLA
commanders hurl land-based weaponry into the fray. But at the same time,
the U.S. Navy would probably fight alongside allied navies—from the
likes of Japan, South Korea or Australia—in near-shore combat. And, like
China, the allies could harness Asia’s congested offshore geography, using land-based armaments to augment their fleets’ innate combat punch.
In short, the two tactical arenas differ starkly from each other. The
latter is messier and more prone to chance, uncertainty, and the fog of
war—not to mention the derring-do of an enterprising foe.
Submarine warfare would constitute a common denominator in U.S.
maritime strategy for oceanic and near-shore combat. Nuclear-powered
attack submarines (SSNs) such as U.S. Virginia- or Los Angeles-class
boats can raid surface shipping on the high seas. Or they can slip
underneath A2/AD defenses to assault enemy vessels, including flattops,
in their coastal redoubts.
In short, SSNs are workhorses in U.S. naval operations. That’s why it’s a grave mistake for Congress to let the size of the SSN fleet
dwindle from fifty-three today to forty-one in 2029. That’s a 23
percent drop in the number of hulls at a time when China is bulking up
its fleet of nuclear- and conventionally propelled subs—to as many as 78 by 2020—and Russia is rejuvenating its silent-running sub force.
American submarines, then, are carrier-killers regardless of the
tactical setting. Now, there’s a bit of a futurist feel to talk about
battling Chinese carrier groups. At present the PLA Navy has just one
flattop, a refitted Soviet vessel dubbed Liaoning. That vessel
is and will probably remain a training carrier, grooming aviators and
ship crews for the operational carriers—most likely improved versions of
Liaoning—that are reportedly undergoing construction.
Let’s suppose Chinese shipyards complete the PLA’s second
carrier—China’s first indigenously built carrier—at the same clip that
Newport News Shipbuilding completed USS Forrestal, the nation’s first supercarrier and a conventionally propelled vessel with roughly the same dimensions and complexity as Liaoning. It took just over three years to build Forrestal, from the time shipbuilders laid her keel until she was placed in commission.
Let’s further suppose that the PLA Navy has made great strides in
learning how to operate carrier task forces at sea. If so, the navy will
integrate the new flattop seamlessly and speedily into operations,
making it a battleworthy addition to China’s oceangoing fleet. Our
hypothetical high-seas clash thus could take place circa 2020.
In 2020, as today, the carrier air wing will remain the surface U.S. Navy’s chief carrier-killer. U.S. CVNs can carry about 85 tactical aircraft. While estimates of the size of a future Chinese flattop’s air wing vary, let’s take a high-end estimate
of 50 fixed-wing planes and helicopters. That means, conservatively
speaking, that the U.S. CVN’s complement will be 70 percent larger than
its PLA Navy opponent’s.
And in all likelihood, the American complement will be superior to
the Chinese on a warbird-for-warbird basis. It appears future PLA Navy
flattops will, like Liaoning, be outfitted with ski jumps on
their bows to vault aircraft into the sky. That limits the weight—and
thus the load of fuel and weapons—that a Chinese aircraft can haul while
still getting off the flight deck.
U.S. CVNs, meanwhile, slingshot heavy-laden fighter/attack jets off
their flight decks using steam or electromagnetic catapults. More
armaments translates into a heavier-hitting naval air force, more fuel
into greater range and time on station.
For example, F-18E/F Super Hornet fighter/attack jets can operate against targets around 400 nautical miles distant,
not counting the additional distance their weapons travel after firing.
That’s roughly comparable to the combat radius advertised for Chinese
J-15 carrier planes—but again, a U.S. air wing will outnumber its
Chinese counterpart while packing more punch per airframe. Advantage:
U.S. Navy.
By 2020, moreover, promising antiship weaponry may have matured and
joined the U.S. arsenal. At present the surface navy’s main antiship
armament is the elderly Harpoon cruise missile, a “bird” of 1970s
vintage with a range exceeding 60 miles. That pales in comparison with the latest PLA Navy birds—most notably the YJ-18, which boasts a range of 290 nautical miles.
Weaponeers are working at helter-skelter speed to remedy the U.S.
Navy’s range shortfall. Boeing, the Harpoon’s manufacturer, is doubling the bird’s range. The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office recently repurposed
the SM-6 surface-to-air missile for antiship missions, doubling or
tripling the surface fleet’s striking range against carrier or
surface-action groups. And on it goes. Last year the navy tested an antiship variant of the Tomahawk cruise missile, reinventing a very—very—long-range capability that existed in the late Cold War. A new long-range antiship missile is undergoing development.
How the navy deploys new weaponry as it enters service is nearly as
important as fielding the weapons themselves. Under a concept dubbed “distributed lethality,”
naval officialdom wants to disperse firepower throughout the fleet
while retaining the capacity to concentrate firepower on target. What
that means in practical terms is arming more ships with antiship
missiles, supplemented by gee-whiz technologies like electromagnetic railguns and shipboard lasers should they fulfill their promise.
The U.S. Navy, then, will deploy no single carrier-killer weapon. It
will deploy many. Coupled with submarine warfare and naval aviation,
newfangled surface-warfare implements will stand the U.S. Navy in good
stead for blue-water engagements by 2020. Trouble is, an open-ocean
engagement is the least likely scenario pitting America’s
against China’s navy. What would they fight over in, say, the central
Pacific? And what would prompt the PLA Navy to venture beyond range of
shore fire support—surrendering its difference-maker in sea combat?
No. It’s far more likely any fleet action will take place within
reach of PLA anti-access weaponry. The waters shoreward of the island
chains are the waters Beijing cares about most. They’re also waters where the United States, the keeper of freedom of the sea and guarantor of Asian allies’ security, is steadfast about remaining the predominant sea power. Conflict is possible in offshore seas and skies should Beijing and Washington deadlock over some quarrel.
And waging it could prove troublesome in the extreme. Talk about
distributed lethality! As U.S. forces close in on the Asian mainland,
they must traverse an increasingly dense thicket of A2/AD defenses.
Carrier-killer ASBMs could cut loose throughout the Western Pacific on
day one of a naval war, peppering vessels already in the theater or
lumbering westward from U.S. bases. Offshore sentinels—principally
missile-armed small craft and diesel attack subs—could disgorge barrages of antiship cruise missiles.
As if that offshore picket line isn’t enough, there’s shore-based
antiship weaponry, including not just ASBMs but cruise-missile batteries
and missile-armed warplanes stationed along the Chinese seaboard. A
nuclear-propelled carrier is a big ship but a small airfield—and it
would face off against a host of land-based airfields and missile
platforms. All in all, A2/AD poses a wicked tactical and operational
problem for U.S. skippers.
The oceangoing PLA Navy fleet could fare far better in a Western
Pacific trial of arms than in the open Pacific, the Indian Ocean, or
some other faraway expanse. In short, the PLA Navy is a modern-day fortress fleet.
Such a fleet shelters safely within range of shore-based
defenses—supplementing its own firepower to make the difference in
action against a stronger antagonist.
Fortress fleets often meet a grim fate in combat on the open sea,
denuded of that protective umbrella. Closer to home—within reach of
shore fire support—they can acquit themselves well. China is counting on
it.
A quick history lesson in parting. The fortress-fleet concept had humble origins. Sea-power pundit Alfred Thayer Mahan coined it—I
think—to describe Russian Navy commanders’ habit of staying within
reach of a fort’s gunnery to fend off superior opponents. The fleet was
ostensibly the fort’s forward defender against naval assault, but an
outgunned fleet could use the fort’s artillery as a protective screen.
Mahan had the guns of Port Arthur,
the maritime gateway to the Bohai Sea and thence to China’s capital
city, in mind when writing about fortress fleets. The Russian squadron
based at Port Arthur stayed mainly under the guns while confronting
Admiral Heihachiro Tōgō’s Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Combined Fleet
during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.
The Port Arthur squadron was more or less safe so long as it remained
within range of Port Arthur’s guns, but it accomplished little. Tōgō
& Co. made short work of the fleet when Russian commanders offered battle on the high seas in August 1904. The debacle repeated itself in May 1905, when the Combined Fleet and the Russian Baltic Fleet met in action at Tsushima Strait.
Russian fleets, then, were simply outclassed by their IJN antagonists on a mano-a-mano
basis. But imagine what may have transpired had the gunners at Port
Arthur been able to rain accurate fire on Japanese ships not just a few
but scores or hundreds of miles distant. That would have extended
Mahan’s fortress-fleet logic throughout the combat theater. With
long-distance backup from the fort, Russian seafarers may have emerged
the victors rather than suffering successive cataclysmic defeats. The
weak would have won.
That’s a rough analogy to today. Fortress China is festooned with
airfields and mobile antiship weaponry able to strike hundreds of miles
out to sea. Yes, the U.S. Navy remains stronger than the PLA Navy in
open-sea battle. A fleet-on-fleet engagement isolated from shore-based
reinforcements would probably go America’s way. But that hypothetical
result may not make much difference since the two navies are more likely
to join battle in confined Asian waters than on the open ocean.
The U.S. Navy, it seems, is optimized for the blue-water
conflagration that’s least likely to occur. Question marks surround who
would prevail in the scenarios that are most menacing and most likely to
occur. Carrier-killing munitions may make the fortress fleet a going
concern at last, long after the age of Mahan. And that suits Beijing
fine.James Holmes is Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College and coauthor of Red Star over the Pacific. The views voiced here are his alone.Image: US ships firing missiles. Wikimedia Commons/public domain.

Intel finds around 500 missiles in South China Sea set to destroy intruders

The U.S. intelligence community discovers
“hundreds” of surface-to-air missiles that China recently shipped to its
Hainan Island in the South China Seato to protect airstrips on three of
the man-made islands against intruders, exclusive report on Fox News.

According to the report, the total number of surface-to-air missiles
on Hainan could reach 500. The new missiles have been seen by American
intelligence satellites on China’s provincial island province of Hainan,
which is not part the disputed islands.
The missiles now on Hainan island, China’s largest in the South China
Sea, are a combination of short- medium- and long-range weapons. And
they include one battalion of the advanced SA-21 system, a long-range
missle system that is based on fourth-generation Russian software and
capable of knocking out aircraft from as far away as 250 miles.
Two military officials told Fox News on Saturday that missiles will
be moved to the country’s nearby and disputed man-made islands in the
coming months.
Earlier this month, China is reportedly getting ready to deploy another missile defense system from a port in southeast China.
China also flew a long-range bomber around the South China Sea for
the first time since March 2015 and days after Mr. Trump’s phone call
with his Taiwan counterpart.

Chinese whispers: How China is using the media as a form of soft power in Australia

After
a year dominated by controversy over China’s soft power forays into
Australian politics, experts are warning the emerging superpower is
using Australian media to exert political influence with implications
for press freedom.
A recent report commissioned by the Australia-China Relations
Institute at the University of Technology, Sydney, argues this “major
blind spot in Australia’s… understanding of Chinese-language media”
could become “a trigger for social disharmony”.”

An
Amnesty International member covers her mouth during an event in Sydney
on July 30, 2008 as part of a campaign to end internet censorship in
China. Photo: AFP/Greg Wood.

The report (PDF) by
Wanning Sun, Professor of Media and Communication Studies, says there
“has been a discernible shift from a mostly critical coverage of China
to a mostly supportive stance.”
She says the ‘going global’ initiative of the Chinese state media has become integrated with Chinese media in Australia.
“But they have also fanned Chinese nationalist sentiments, mostly
siding with China if there is a potential clash between the two nations
on matters of national pride, sovereignty and territoriality,” she says
in the report.Cash for comment
The report comes after a tumultuous year for Chinese soft power in
Australia – which triggered a national conversation about China’s soft
power push into politics and the media.

The most high profile of these cases involved Senator Sam Dastyari,
once seen as a rising star in the Australian Labor Party, who was
unceremoniously forced to resign after a serious of controversies that all had a common denominator: links to Beijing.
One such case involved a $5,000 (HK$27,822) payment from China-based Yuhu Group, which has lobbied
against the recognition of Taiwan, to settle a legal dispute. To make
matters worse, the group’s chairman Huang Xiangmo had recently written
in a Chinese newspaper that donors needed to learn how to have, “a more
efficient combination between political requests and political
donations”.
“The Australian Chinese community is inexperienced in using political
donations to satisfy political requests,” Huang wrote in the Global Times.
But this wasn’t his only connection to Beijing. Senator Dastyari was also caught pledging to
respect China’s position on the South China Sea, putting him at odds
with official Labor policy on China and the South China Sea.

Australian
Labor Party’s Senator Sam Dastyari fronts the media in Sydney on
September 6, 2016, to make a public apology after asking a company with
links to the Chinese Government to pay a 1,273 USD bill incurred by his
office. Photo: AFP/William West.

This led many to question what China might be expecting in return.Growing influence
Published in Sydney Today
(今日悉尼), a growing online Chinese-language news outlet, Senator
Dastyari’s controversial comments highlight the growing influence of the
vibrant Australian-Chinese media landscape that has emerged.
The site, which reportedly enjoys five million page views a month on
its website and another three million via its WeChat account, is a prime
example of why both major parties are keen to court Chinese-language
media in their search for votes.
Yet Dr Sun’s report notes “there is little clear evidence that such
‘localised’ propaganda has a direct impact on Chinese-speaking
audiences”.
But others aren’t so sure. Peter Cai, a research fellow at
international policy think-tank the Lowy Institute, said such influence
is “a hidden disease, largely invisible to the Australian public and
English-speaking population”.

Sydney Today.

“It does have impact on a sizeable and growing Chinese-Australian
community and especially new migrants and students from mainland China,”
he recently wrote.
Despite this influence into Chinese-Australian media, Mr Cai said the
most pressing issue is Beijing’s ability to control popular social
media platforms like WeChat.
“Like people everywhere, China’s population has increasingly turned
to social media platforms as a preferred source of reading about news
and commentary on current affairs,” he said. “This means the ruling
Communist party can extend its censorship tentacles into Australia
without the need to own any publications.”
None of this should come as a surprise. It was China’s president Xi
Jinping who said in 2014 China “should increase China’s soft power, give
a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s messages to
the world”.

CCTV headquarters (left). Photo: Wikicommons.

And those behind this “good Chinese narrative” have the cash to splash. The Chinese government is reportedly
spending US$10 billion each year to fund state-owned media outlets like
CCTV and China Radio International as it seeks to wins hearts and minds
across the globe.(In)dependent media
Speaking at a conference held
last month by the Australian-China Relations Institute entitled
“Chinese media in Australia”, Professor John Fitzgerald, Director of the
CSI Swinburne Program for Asia-Pacific Social Investment and
Philanthropy, said he was most concerned about the lack of political
reporting in Chinese-Australian media.
“The whole point is to exclude politics,” he said, “and that’s just
as alarming… The [Chinese] Government doesn’t need to directly dictate
what to cover. They have set the lines around permissible conduct,
limiting what can be said.”
The effect of this is that politically sensitive or critical coverage
of China has largely disappeared from Chinese-Australian media.
But it isn’t only Chinese-language media that is coming under Beijing’s sphere influence.
Fairfax, one of Australia’s largest media companies, came under fire
this year from critics when it started publishing paid lift-outs
spreading pro-Beijing’s views.
The ‘China Daily’ inserts, or advertorials, follow similar agreements with the Washington Post and the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
In Australia, the inaugural issue in July included plenty of
flattering coverage of China, including an article that said “China will
not sit by idly” in the South China Sea dispute.
Professor Fitzgerald said that taken together these deals suggest a landmark victory for the Chinese Communist Party.
“China’s media experts have done their homework on the Australian
media and found opportunities to exploit the financial vulnerability of
the mainstream private media market,” he wrote this year.
“Under the new agreements, many ‘myths will be dispelled,’ possibly
including myths of the independence and integrity of Australia’s
mainstream news media.”

Wechat. File photo: AFP/Peter Parks.

Mr Cai said the bigger risk to press freedom comes from Beijing’s
control over key information portals used by Australia’s mainland
Chinese migrant community like WeChat.
“Imagine for a second, that Beijing can exercise complete editorial
control over channels like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and consider what
kind of damage that control can do to press freedom,” he said.Follow Andrew Barclay on Twitter @andrewreporting.

Philippine President Duterte Likes China Because China Won't Criticize Him

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte obvioulsy doesn’t take well to criticism.The leader said this month he personally had killed suspected
criminals as past mayor of the country’s second largest city Davao.
Since the 72-year-old leader with a reputation for fighting crime took
office as president June 30, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people have
been executed without trial in his campaign to rid the Southeast Asian
archipelago of drugs such as “shabu” methamphetamine. Duterte learned that trick from Davao where he was mayor for 22 years and would personally patrol parts of the city for crime.Also this month the U.S. anti-poverty agency Millennium
Challenge Corp. said it would withhold $433 million in aid to the
Philippines over civil liberty concerns, a likely reference to the
drug-linked killings. So Duterte told the United States, an old ally, to
“prepare to leave” his country and threatened to cancel a Visiting
Forces Agreement that authorizes military exchanges with Washington.
Duterte has used dirty language against the Pope, a U.N. official and
others overseas for raising red flags about the extrajudicial killings,
per news reports. On Dec. 5 he asked Philippine Vice President Leni
Robredo, who was elected separately and represents an opposition party,
to leave his cabinet. She too has questioned Duterte’s anti-crime
tactics.But the Communist government in Beijing has a history of locking up its own people and making threats against foreign governments
for questioning things it does. China has not slammed Duterte’s drug
campaign and how could it? In China you go to court for a show trial
(few defenses are taken seriously) on suspicion of a heinous crime
before being executed. In the Philippines a drug dealer might get killed
now without the trial.The two governments may be meant for each other, a reason
smoothing the sudden improvement in once badly strained relations since
Duterte took office. China traditionally forms its best ties in Asia
with countries that don’t criticize it – Cambodia and Malaysia
for example. It’s all the better if those countries leave China’s
maritime expansion alone, negotiating one-on-one over use of any
overlapping waters and Duterte has said OK to that. China seldom
criticizes any country’s internal affairs, including how it handles
criminals, unless someone else fires something off first like U.S.
officials raising human rights issues. Duterte is also chasing other countries unlikely to bash his
approach to controlling the drug trade. Japan hasn’t said much, and in
October Duterte visited Tokyo
to lock in good relations there. It’s hard to imagine a blast of
outrage from Russia, which is probably Duterte’s next foreign policy
priority.

Recommended by Forbes

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte
gestures during a press conference shortly after arriving from Singapore
at Davao international airport in southern island of Mindanao early
December 17, 2016. Duterte boasted again on December 16, he had killed
criminals, as he vowed no let up in his war on drugs that has already
claimed thousands of lives. (MANMAN DEJETO/AFP/Getty Images)

There’s a reward of course for for hanging out with China on its terms. Beijing pledged $24 billion in investment and aid when Duterte visited Chinese leaders
in October, a landmark event after competing maritime claims had
strained relations since 2012. An easing of maritime tension could also
make fishing safer for the millions of Filipinos who depend on that for a
living – and who may easily drift into waters claimed by China.
“It’s easier if you have a large neighbor that you’re friendly with,
and then you can strengthen economic ties,” says Song Seng Wun, an
economist in the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore. “The key
thing for people on the ground really is food on the table, money in the
pocket and opportunity for business expansion, and it looks like there
will be.”

About Me

ROLAND SAN JUAN was a researcher, management consultant, inventor, a part time radio broadcaster and a publishing director. He died last November 25, 2008 after suffering a stroke. His staff will continue his unfinished work to inform the world of the untold truths. Please read Erick San Juan's articles at: ericksanjuan.blogspot.com This blog is dedicated to the late Max Soliven, a FILIPINO PATRIOT.
DISCLAIMER - We do not own or claim any rights to the articles presented in this blog. They are for information and reference only for whatever it's worth. They are copyrighted to their rightful owners.
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